Monday, February 11, 2013

Cheap and Peppy Frosting: Metallic Sweater Knit Tunic Reveal!

While the Northeast had it's own coating of frosting yesterday, I headed out with Phin for a little fun in the snow in my new shiny, slinky tunic.

Scaling Everest Pose

Not bad for a $2 top, eh? See, you can find frosting in every price range!

My favorite hat!

This is a somewhat modified version of V1314, a Tracy Reese dress that is gathered down the sides. I sewed it up in the silver and black metallic mystery sweater knit that I picket up at the San Diego Swap Meet in early January for $2. It's shinier in person. Burn tests were inconclusive: it melted but had orange flames, it had ashes and beads, and it smelled like the ripstop I worked with last winter (read: a likely carcinogen). So clearly it is some sort of blend.

There isn't a whole lot of information about sewing this sort of sweater knit floating around the blogosphere. The fabric is loosely knit and basically see thru, but didn't seem too prone to raveling. Even so, I decided to take a kitchen sink approach to stabilization and raveling. Here's what I did (interspersed with winter fun pictures).

The world would be a better place if there were more pompoms.

Side, Shoulder and Sleeve Seams
This was pretty straight forward. After basting in the side seam gathers, I used 3/8" clear elastic and a 4 thread overcast stitch on my serger to sew these seams and finish the seam allowances in one swoop. I'm not wildly experienced with sergers; maybe not all are alike. But mine has some differential feed features and a stitch finger just for knits that keeps the feed and stretch in check - no fiddling and my knits don't seem to pucker or get wavy.

Overreaching model loses balance, falls off Everest pose.

Neckline, armscyes and hem
First, I used fusible tricot interfacing to stabilize these three areas.

The fusible tricot is perfect for knits since it has controlled stretch, and the one I like best fuses at a pretty low heat - a plus for mystery fabrics of uncertain origin.

For the sleeves, I basted the sleeves in, then sewed with a narrow zigzag stitch. After clipping the curves I pressed the seam allowance toward the bodice and top stitched with a twin needle with wooly nylon thread in the bobbin. Even though a twin needle gives the stitches some stretch and I used the tricot interfacing, I was worried about seams breaking when
I pulled the garment over my head and shoulders. This top/dress has negative ease. Wooly nylon thread is very soft and stretchy, yet strong. It looks a bit more like yarn than thread. So, it was a good solution and definitely made the seams stretchier. I plan to use it again on any lingerie projects that require stretch (ie panties or a stretch lace cami).

Is there anything as awesome as a field of undisturbed snow?

For the neckline, a folded strip of self-fabric binding is applied and then turned to the inside and stitched in place. I used the twin needle to finish it as well.

And the hem was simply fused and then turned and finished with the twin needle.

I checked all the seams when I took the top off last night and am pleased to report that the kitchen sink approach seems to have worked out just fine. All seams were intact.

I am an airplane!

I made a bunch of changes to this pattern:

I omitted the lining. I'm wearing a black cami and leggings underneath instead.

I shortened it to tunic length, which is what I pictured, but also I didn't have enough fabric to make it full length

I made the sleeves 3/4 length (lack of fabric, again)

I'm really pleased with how this fits, but it is not exactly "out of the envelope". I added 1" of length above the waist and basically whipped out my measuring tape to figure out what size I wanted to trace where (12 bust, 10 waist, 14 hips). I basically cut to my measurements, without accounting for seam allowances, which is where the negative ease came from. A very new thing I decided to try in order to deal with the gaping I always get at the back of the neck is that I traced an 8 through the upper back. It worked beautifully. Lastly, I shaved about 1/2 inch from the sleeve cap after basting and trying on.

It was GREAT snowball snow.

One of the nice out of the envelope features is that this dress has a higher tighter armscye/sleeve than most patterns I've sewn. I think this is great since too much ease in the armscye looks sloppy to me and reduces range of motion. A higher tighter armscye is perfect for the sort of full shoulder rotation that gets some spin on a snowball...

Phin thought I was being cute...

...until he had to dodge snowballs and take pictures at the same time.

I'm really happy with this top. I may have to make a sleeveless dress version of this for the summer, or maybe another tunic if I stumble across a knit I really like. But for now, since I've got a few shiney slinky frostings in my wardrobe, it's on to other projects that have been percolating in my brain.

OK, final outtakes...

"I'm gonna make a snow angel!"

He he he

Clio-Angel

For those of you in winterland, I hope you had some snow day fun, too! And avoided being attacked by crazed sewists wielding icicles...

28 comments:

Karin
said...

It's a basic with sparkle! I love it, practical and indulgent all at the same time. The pattern fit is spot on for you. It shows off your lovely curves with just the right amount of fitting and gathers.

Thank goodness, we had only a bit of wind (a few small tree limbs down) and some rain -- which we needed. It's in the 60s today, and misty. I like the silvery, heathery quality of your fabulous new snow bunny shirt. "Snow" is a four-letter word at my house. You just enjoy the heck out of it, on my behalf.

I did that for the shoulder, sleeve and side seams and was happy with the results. But for the areas where I wanted stability before sewing the seam (ie: setting in the sleeve and applying the neckline facing) without adding bulk, I used the fusible tricot, which is lighter than the elastic. I'm really pleased with the results.

Fabulous pictures! We got the same dump of snow over the weekend - it was glorious! GLORIOUS, I say! And I love your metallic frosting. Y'know, I've sewn a few knits, and read all about interfacing them and stabilizing the shoulders, etc., etc., but I never do it. I guess I don't know what I'm doing with knits, but everything seems to stay in shape properly! *knockonwood*

What I did may very well have been overkill. Knits are not really my thing either. So, it was a good opportunity to test out some different techniques and finishes. Yeah, the snow was fun while it lasted. ;-)

Can't go wrong with cheap and sparkly, especially with the kitchen sink engineering you've got going on in that top! I'm not wildly experienced with sewing knits or using a serger, but since I'm delving into both lately your construction details are really interesting to me.

Welcome

Welcome to Clio & Phineas, where I sew and knit, run and bake, and make a mess in general. We even made a baby, Taco. Phin often gets stuck with clean up, especially now that we've had an addition. Feel free to send us an email at Clio[dot]Phineas[at]gmail[dot]com